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| Vol. 4, Issue 5 May 2012 |
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Fiction & Poetry |
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Poetry |
Homeless, A Secret Incident, Springtime Sea and The Depth of a Landscape 2
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Published : 1 February 2012 |
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ABOUT THE POEMS The South Korean poet Kim Sa-in writes a verse recognisably Buddhist in its mindfulness, present-centredness and compassion, yet not detached from the merry-go-round of the world’s events and the pleasures of human appetites. His work seems to speak from two points simultaneously, both immersed in a particular experience and somehow above it. His voice is for the most part grave, hushed, reverent—even before such things as a dead leaf falling from a tree—but it rises suddenly into piquancy, laughter and mischief. From the homeless person speaking to his only companion and auditor, his body, to a man’s vivid lust for the village head’s wife, these poems gather into sublime forms the many strands and sounds of both world and mind.
Four poems by Kim Sa-in
Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé
Homeless
Removing your clothes like an old newsprint
I lay you down raw on a damp mattress and look down on you.
Your gnarled hands and feet, that have lost their vigour,
the traces of skinny limbs and ribs, how weary they look,
I’m sorry.
Using you, I earned a living,
got a woman and started a family but
the only things left are stale sweat and a nightmare road.
Again I laid you, docile,
in a secluded corner of unfamiliar ground.
What else could I do?
I’m not saying there were no good days, yet
There’s little hope I can pay even a meager wage for your labours.
Now I’m wondering if I would like to go away quietly,
simply leaving you sleeping here.
What about it, body?
A Secret Incident
One evening good for neither this nor that
a premature dead leaf drops stealthily beside me.
Beside me, there where I cannot help but be,
it too is simply there, saying nothing.
Thanks.
Really this is something to be grateful for.
Springtime Sea
The village head’s wife
had a big behind,
it looked just like a big bowl,
it looked just like a big bowl.
The village head’s wife
was big-bosomed, too,
the front of her worn vest
looked like a grave-mound,
looked like a grave-mound.
How I longed to lie like rose-moss
beside her as she dozed.
How I longed to sink
into her faint snoring.
How I longed to be reborn
as her third son,
good-looking,
go up to Seoul and set up with some wealthy widow.
The Depth of a Landscape 2
This road, a road along which someone having nowhere in the world to rest passed weeping with a small bundle,
this therefore sorrowful road,
with oak trees and spicebush, dog rose and pasqueflowers, tiny weeds,
empty now, where not one animal passes all day long,
a bright, dark road.
That person set out aged seventeen,
drifted about, sat squatting as a cobbler at Jochiwon Market,
slow gestures as he sewed and polished,
eating soup with rice alone every evening in a small restaurant at an alley’s end,
once in a while staring into the distance over his reading glasses,
his face,
a quiet, dark road.
Kim Sa-in is a South Korean poet and critic. His two collections of poetry are Night Letters and Liking In Silence.
Brother Anthony of Taizé studied at Oxford and has been living in Korea since 1980. He has published 25 volumes of translations of contemporary Korean writers.
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